Age and gender differences between pupils’ preferences in teaching general and compulsory technology education in Croatia

International Journal of Technology and Design Education - Today’s dynamic change of the pupils’ technological environment certainly affects their preferences towards technology, which...     

Gaming the future of an urban network

Scenario and gaming techniques have a number of complementary characteristics. In this article, the design and evaluation of a gaming-scenario experiment for the exploration of development planning in an urban network in the Netherlands is presented. Two gaming sessions were held using two long-term scenarios (2030) as varying contexts. The combined gaming-scenario approach made it possible to evaluate the impact of external future developments and trends on the administrative and spatial development. Evaluation results of the gaming experiment indicate that the gaming-scenario approach generated new and critical insights on development planning and the future of the urban network. Through the game, the principal, the game leaders but most of all the stakeholder-participants experienced and realized that the management of development planning in urban networks is a very difficult task and is full of pitfalls.     

What Drives Security Issuance Decisions: Market Timing,Pecking Order,or Both?

We study market timing and pecking order in a sample of debt and equity issues and share repurchases of Canadian firms from 1998 to 2007. We find that only when firms are not financially constrained is there evidence that firms issue (repurchase) equity when their shares are overvalued (undervalued) and evidence that overvalued issuers earn lower postannouncement long‐run returns. Similarly, we find that only when firms are not overvalued do they prefer debt to equity financing. These findings highlight an interaction between market timing and pecking order effects.     

The effects of venture capital syndicate diversity on earnings management and performance of IPOs in the US and UK: An institutional perspective

This study examines the extent to which principal–principal agency conflicts within venture capital (VC) syndicates lead to additional principal–agent conflicts in IPO firms in two institutional contexts. Using a matched sample of 274 VC-backed IPOs in the US and the UK, it shows that the diversity of a VC syndicate increases pre-IPO discretionary current accruals, used as a proxy for earnings management, but the impact of such diversity is higher in the US. There is also evidence of higher underpricing and lower aftermarket performance in firms with higher earnings management and VC diversity, and these negative performance effects are also higher in the US. Our findings indicate that local and informal institutions have a significant effect on multiple agency conflicts in IPO firms and performance outcomes.     

Multiple agency perspective,family control,and private information abuse in an emerging economy

Using a comprehensive sample of listed companies in Hong Kong this paper investigates how family control affects private information abuses and firm performance in emerging economies. We combine research on stock market microstructure with more recent studies of multiple agency perspectives and argue that family ownership and control over the board increases the risk of private information abuse. This, in turn, has a negative impact on stock market performance. Family control is associated with an incentive to distort information disclosure to minority shareholders and obtain private benefits of control. However, the multiple agency roles of controlling families may have different governance properties in terms of investors’ perceptions of private information abuse. These findings contribute to our understanding of the conflicting evidence on the governance role of family control within a multiple agency perspective.